V. 



REMARKS 



J 



or 



JOHN Pi HALE, OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, 



ON 




THE INCREASE OF THE ARMY. 



In the United States Senate, January 26 and 28, and February 2, 1858. 



January 26, 1858, Mr. HALE addressed the 
Senate as follows ; 

Mr. President, I beg to make a single 
inquiry of the chairman of the Committee 
on Finance. I have not the papers be- 
fore me, and I desire to inquire from him 
how much the Department asks for arrears 
in the military service of the last year in 
the deficiency bill. 

Mr. HUNTER. No estimate has come 
to me as yet. It has gone to the other 
House ; and I am unable to inform him 
precisely what is the estimate for defi- 
ciencies. 

Mr. HALE. I am told, but not officially, 
and that was the reason why I put the 
question to the honorable chairman of the 
Committee on Finance, that it is very 
nearly seven millions of dollars. The de- 
ficiency which the Administration asks 
for the War Department, for the military 
service, is, I understand, $6,700,000. 
We actually spent $19,426,000, and they 
want about seven millions more, making 
$26,000,000 for military service last year. 
I have a little book here, and I find that 
during the most expensive year of the 
war with Great Britain, our military ex- 
penditures never got up to $21,000,000, 
and in the highest year of the Mexican 
war, when we had, I think, nearly fifty 
thousand men in the field, they never 
reached to $36,000,000; but now, in a 
time of profound peace, they amount to 
$26,000,000. 

The honorable Senator from Georgia is 
a little mistaken in one respect. He 
says that in these extravagant times tha 
army will cost about a thousand dollars to 



a man. They cost that when I first came 
to Congress, fourteen or fifteen years ago. 
I took occasion then to look at the total 
military expenditures of the country, in- 
cluding fortifications, &c., under the mil- 
itary head, and they averaged one thou- 
sand dollars a man. Now, we have got 
up to about fifteen thousand men, and the 
expenditures are about twenty-six million 
dollars, making over fifteen hundred dol- 
lars for every man in the service. Tiiis 
bill proposes to raise about seven thou- 
sand additional men, which will saddle 
upon this Government a permanent annual 
increase of expenditure of about twelve 
million dollars. 

The idea that the army will ever go 
back, and grow smaller, as long as we have 
money or credit to maintain it, is too ab 
surd to be introduced by a sensible man 
on this floor. There are no backward 
tracks, when our Government begins to 
expend money. You may have a war; it 
makes no difference how expensive it is; 
and you may have peace, and your ex- 
penditures will go on increasing. We 
•actually spent more money last year, ex- 
clusive of any paytnent for the public debt, 
than we ever spent in any year from the 
beginning of the Government up to the 
last yiar, by a very considerable amount. 
The highest expenditures, exclusive of 
payments of the public debt, during the 
most expensive year of the war with Mex- 
ico, did not come up to $54,000,000, but 
last year we spent $72,000,000. Pass 
this bill, and next year your expenses, in- 
cluding what you pay, and what you get 
trusted for, will be over a hundred million 






dollars. I represent a people who are in 
the habit of working hard for what little 
money they get, and they are not willing 
to vote away money unless there is an 
absolute necessity for it. 

What does the President want with this 
army? Let me read a note that gives 
definite and official information in regard 
Id some matters about which some re- 
murks have been made. I read from the 
hist Army Register, on the forty-second 
page : 

" By the act of the iTth of June, 1850, ' to in- 
crease the rank and file of the army,' &c., section 
gevond, the President is authorized, whenever 
the exigencies of the service require it, to in- 
crease to seventy-four the number of privates in 
any company ' serving at the several military 
po3t8 on the Western frontier, and at remote and 
distant stations.' In the table, the minimum or 
lixed organization is given, viz : fifty privates to 
H company of dragoons, sixty-four to a company 
of light artillery and riflemen, and forty-two to 
the artillery and infantry. Under the authority 
vested in him, the President has directed that the 
number of privates be carried up to seventy-four 
in the several companies serving in the penin- 
sula of Florida, and on the islands adjacent to 
it ; in Kansas, Nebraska, Utah, Texas, New Mex- 
ico, California, Oregon, and Washington Terri- 
tories ; as well as in those stationed at Forts 
Snelling and Ripley, on the upper Mississippi ; 
Fort Ridgely, on the Minnesota river ; and Fort 
Arbuckle, on Wild Horse creek. There being 
one ktindred and eighty-three companies serving at, 
(11- ill route to, these distant stations, the author- 
ized increase in the number of privates is five 
thousand two hundred and twenty-eight, ma- 
king the ' total enlisted ' (as the troops are now 
posted, or in route) seventeen thousand and 
Bixty-six, and the ' aggregate,' eighteen thousand 
one hundred and fifty-one. If all the companies 
belonging to ' regiments ' (one hundred and 
ninety-eight) were serving at the distant stations 
described, the additional number of privates al- 
lowed would then be five thousand six hundred 
Hud siity-four ; thus increasing the ' total enlist- 
ed' to seventeen thousand five hundred and two, 
stud I he 'aggregate' to eighteen thousand five 
hundred and eighty-seven." 

So, sir, according to this statement, we 
have now actually an army of eighteen 
thousand men, or laws in ibrce by which 
it may be raised to that number. I have 
been a little laughed at once in the Senate, 
and I am willing to be laughed at again, 
for repeating, as the solemn conviction of 
my understanding, a lesson of wisdom 
which the fathers of my native State in- 
scribed on the first Constitution they ever 
wrote, and which, I hope in God, will 
ramaia as long as we have a Constitu- 



tion — that standing armies are dangerous 
to liberty. I tell you, sir, that an army of 
eighteen thousand men, or twenty-five 
thousand men, as this bill proposes to 
make it, with the means of transportation 
with the rapidity of lightning, by means 
of railroads, from one end of the country 
to the other, is a force equal to what it 
would have been in olden times, if we had 
one or two hundred thousand men. The 
President can, if he pleases, concentrate 
them at any point, at any moment, and for 
any purpose. I do not know how it is, but 
the law has been so construed that these 
armies are called, I believe, a posse, and 
under the name of a posse he can trans- 
port them to any place, for any purpose 
he chooses. It is a significant fact to my 
mind, that he has undertaken to use this 
army at elections. Not long ago, there 
was a call made to have a portion of his 
posse go to Baltimore, and see that the 
elections were regularly carried on there. 
I believe, however, it was not thought 
prudent for them to go, and they did no 
go ; but he did have a posse in the city of 
Washington, to carry on an election ; and 
no small portion of this force — ih'x'a posse — 
has been employed and is now being em- 
ployed to illustrate "perfect freedom " and 
" popular sovereignly" in Kansas. 

I have an official table before me, by 
which I find that in the first quarter of 
1855, three hundred and twenty-one men 
were considered sufficient to carry out 
popular sovereignty in Kansas. The next 
quarter, they went up to nine hundred and 
twelve ; and the first quarter of 1856, we 
had got up to one thousand and eighty- 
six men to carry out popular sovereignty 
in Kansas, and leave the people thereof 
" perfectly free." Then we come to the 
first quarter of 1857, and at that time 
"perfect freedom" required a force of one 
thousand three hundred and forty-two men 
in Kansas. They so continued until the 
commencement of the fourth quarter of 
1857, which I suppose was about the 1st 
of October last. About that time, there 
was an election in Kansas ; and the peo- 
ple of Kansas manifested what their ideas 
were of popular sovereignty and perfect 
freedom, by putting the President's forces 
into a very small minority, and electing a 
Free State Legislature, and a Free State 
Delegate to Congress, by an overwhelming 
majority ! and immediately upon that, the 



3 



Federal army is raised from one thousand 
six hundred and seventy-three to two thou- 
sand five hundred and sixteen men in 
Kansas. That is what the President needs 
this army for — to carry out " popular sov- 
ereignty"' and "perfect freedom!" I 
think a force of eighteen thousand men is 
quite enough to do that; and I think that 
$26,000,000, in a time of profound peace, 
is enough to spend upon an army in this 
country, particularly as long as we have 
to borrow the money to do it with. Bor- 
lowing money in order to raise men for 
such a purpose, I am utterly opposed to. 
I believe that if there is a difficulty in 
Utah, the army is three times large enough 
to attend to it. 

I am sorry to disagree with a man who 
is so perfectly competent to express an 
opinion on these matters as the honorable 
Senator from Mississippi is, but I differ 
from him entirely in the view which he 
presents, that our difficulties are owing to 
the fact that we have so few soldiers amonof 
the Indians. I believe the difficulty is, 
that we have had any troops among them. 
I think it has been provoked by the mili- 
tary display which has been made among 
them, and the conduct of some of the 
men, either among the volunteers or the 
regulars, that have been stationed among 
the Indians. I do not speak without the 
book, on this subject. Anybody who will 
read the history of the Oregon and Wash- 
ington Indian war, given by General Wool, 
(though I believe, as a matter of private 
history, the honorable Senator from Mis- 
sissippi would not regard that as the high- 
est authority,) will see what it is that pro- 
vokes Indian hostilities on our frontiers. 
You will see there, according to the ac- 
count of General Wool, that an Indian 
chief who came into the American camp 
with a flag of truce, offering, if any injury 
had been committed by his people, to make 
compensation and reparation in cattle or 
in money, was told that he had better go 
home and fight. They finally provoked 
hostilities, and took this chief who came 
in with a flag of truce, murdered him in 
the American camp, cut him into pieces, 
and sent the pieces around to different 
quarters of the Territory. That is a state- 
ment under the hand of General Wool. 

Now, sir, I believe that the experiment 
which was made in olden times with the: 
Indians, by the Quaker Penn, has been ! 



the best and wisest Indian policy which 
has ever been adopted. If the Indiana 
are treated like men, I will not say with 
kindness, but with justice, you will be 
troubled with no Indian war. I am sorry 
that I do not see in his seat the veteran 
and honorable and gallant Senator from 
Texas, [Mr. Houston,] who knows so 
much in regard to the Indian, and who 
has so often, in his place on the floor of 
the Senate, expressed sentiments similar 
to those which I have here expressed. 
He has said, in regard to Indian hostili- 
ties, that whenever the blame is traced to 
its foundation and its source, it has been 
found to be with the whites, and not with 
the Indians. If we return to a policy of 
peace and justice to the Indians, that is 
all that is wanted. 

I do not profess to know much about 
this Mormon war. I will say in the out- 
set, however, that I do not believe in it, 
nor in the necessity for the tremendous 
expenditure that is being made. I believe 
that if commissioners had been sent to 
precede the army, they would have super- 
seded the necessity for sending the army. 

Again, the honorable Senator from 
Georgia says we have not declared war 
against the Mormons. Has he forgotten 
our modern history? He is well versed 
in ancient history ; but has he forgotten 
our modern history? Did we ever de- 
clare war against Mexico? No, sir; but 
I will tell you what we did declare. We 
declared ^that war existed by the act of 
Mexico. We may declare by and by that 
war exists by the act of Brigham Young ; 
and if it be repeated as many times in a 
Presidential message as the other state- 
ment was, that war was commenced by 
the act of Mexico, it will get to be a part 
of our history; and a man who shall doubt 
that war was commenced by Brigham 
Young will be no better than an alien and 
a heathen. 

I shall vote for this amendment, and I 
shall go for any other amendment that is 
proposed, which will limit or restrict the 
number. I shall support the amendment 
which I understand my honorable friend 
[Mr. Seward] proposes to oflfier, that 
these troops shall be limited to the special 
necessity which calls for them ; and when 
that ceases, they shall cease to exist. I 
shall go for every amendment that will cut 
the array down to what the honorable 



Senator from Mississippi calls it — a skel-i Document No. 56 of the Senate, of the 
eton. I shall want to reduce it to a skel- Thirty-fourth Congress, third session, in 
eton, ?nd I shall go against the skeleton which there is a recapitulation of the ap- 
after'that. I shall go°against the whole propriations made last year; and in that 

recapitulation I find this item: "Army, 
fortihcalions, and Military Academy, 
$19,426,190.41 ; " the precise sum which 
I stated the other day, omitting the frac- 
tions of dollars and cents. I hold in my 
hand another document, of which I pro- 
pose to read a page, and then leave the 
subject. I now read from Miscellaneous 
Document No. 22 of the House of Rep- 
resentatives of the present session, enti- 
tled, "Deficiencies in Quartermaster's 
Department : " 

Quartermaster General's Office, 

Washington, January 6, 1858. 

Sir : As I bad occasion to state in my report, 

dated 21st of November, tbat large appropriations 

would be required for deficiencies in the present 

year, on account of transportation and other army 



bill. 

The accuracy of the foregoing statement of the I 
military expenses of the last year having been ; 
questioned in a city newspaper of the following 
day, on the 28th of January Mr. HALE again 
spoke as follows : 

Mr. President, with the consent of the 
Senator from Georgia, who is entitled to 
the floor, I rise to a statement which I 
wish to correct. The day before yester- 
day I stated, in my place, some facts with 
reference to the expenditures of the army, 
and the appropriations asked for in the 
deficiency bill, in these words, as they are 
reported ; and I believe they are reported 
accurately : 

' The deficiency which the Administration asks 



for the War Department, for the military service, expenditures, made by the laws and regulations 

is, I understand, $6,700,000. We actually spent through the Quartermaster's department, I have 

$19,426,000, and they want about seven million made a thorough investigation of all the busi- 

dollars more, making $26,000,000 for military negj as well as military operations of the depart- 

Fervice last year." ment, and have found that, from the vast extent 

That is the statement which is quoted of those operations, the deficiency to be supplied 

. ^\^ir.A ;„ iK;^. n\fi, ,>q11o/) is greater than I had believed it would be at the 
in a newspaper prmted in this city, called ^^ 



the Washington Union, which, I believe, is 
the organ of the Administration, of the 
Supreme Court, and of the Lecompton 
Convention. I do not often notice at- 
tacks from such quarters, when they relate 
to myself personally ; but as this relates to 
a matter connected with the public ser- 
vice, and the accuracy of my statement is 
questioned, I beg leave to lay two docu- 
ments before the Senate. The writer goes 
on to say : 

" It is surprising that a member of the august 
Senate of the United States should consent to 
commit himself to statements like these — state- 
ments disclosing either inexcusable ignorance of 
the subject in hand, or else a most callous indif- 
ference to fact and truth." 

Then he follows with about a column 
of twaddle, which, I suppose, he meant 
for wit ; but I think he will have to explain 
it to anybody, to get it understood as such. 
Then he comes to this statement: 

" The Senator, therefore, has made the slight 
mistake of $5,000,000 in his statement of the 
aggregate expenses of the army for the year. In- 
stead of $26,000,000, the charge is $21,000,000; 
and of this charge, nearly seven millions are 
asked to meet the extraordinary exigency of the 
Utah rebellion." 

I hold in ray hand, sir, Miscellaneous 



date of my report. 

It is ascertained that a deficiency existed at 
the close of last year, which has been a charge 
upon the present year, of about $1,000,000; in 
addition to which, the extensive operations against 
the Cheyennes and other Indian tribes, and the 
extensive arrangements for the operations in 
Utah, have exhausted the appropriations for the 
present year so far, that there is not a sufficient 
balance'in the Treasury to fill the estimates now 
on my table, for December ; and the whole bal- 
ance in the hands of disbursing officers will not 
be sufficient for the service for one half of the 
present month. Appropriations will therefore be 
required to carry the service through the year, 
and to make the large outfit for the operations 
in Utah for the following objects, viz : 
For regular supplies, including fuel, forage, straw, 

and stationery 
Mounts and remounts 
Incidental expenses - 
Barracks and quarters 
Army transportation - 



Making 



$778,000 

- 252,000 

- 190,000 
80,000 

- 5,400,000 

- 6,700,000 



deficiencies, and for the service in Utah, taking 
the army as it is, and limiting the expenditures 
to operations already determined on, as they 
have been communicated to me. 

Should operations be carried on from the Pa- 
cific, or should a larger force be sent from this 
side, an increase in the appropriation in propor- 
tion to the increased force will be required. 

I will have all the details ready to submit to 
you, 60 soon as they can be fairly copied, which 



5 



make the several aggregate amounts above stated 
to be necessary. 

I have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully, 
your obedient servant, TIL S. JESUP, 

Quartermaster General. 
Hon. John B. Floyd, . 

Secretary of War, Washington, D. C. 

Having the figures with me, I leave the 
wit to the editor. 

On the 2d of February following, Mr. Skwaud 
having expressed his purpose to vole for the bill, 
Mr. HALE again addressed the Senate, as fol- 
lows : 

Mr. President, it is with great reluc- 
tance that I throw myselfon the indulgence 
of the Senate for a iew moments; for I 
had hoped not again to feel the necessity 
of trespassing on the patience of the Sen- 
ate; but I am impelled by a sense of duty 
to say a word or two, after the remarks 
which have fallen from the Senator from 
New York. He will not deem me unkind, 
if I say that I have listened with extreme 
pain and di-appointmentand mortification 
to the speech which he has made — a pain 
scarcely less than that with which I heard 
the great statesman of Now England, 
Daniel Webster, some eight years ago, 
with the ripe honors of nearly three score 
and ten years, bring himself and his fame 
and his reputation, and lay them down as 
an offering at the footstool of the slave 
power, to find himself used and spurned 
afterwards. This is no question of detail, 
no matter of unimportant legislation ; but 
it is a deep, vital, fundamental question, 
that must divide the people of this coun- 
try, and must rally the friends of free, in- 
dependent, and liberal Government on the 
one side, and the supporters of power on 
the other. 

Sir, the (juestion of increasing the mil- 
itary power has been a question which has 
divided the friends and the opponents of 
free government in all times; and the ex- 
perience of forty centuries speaks to us, 
in characters of blood, lessons of warning 
upon this great question. Let me say that 
the army which this bill proposes is no 
small, no insignificant, no unimportant 
force. It will, if completed according to 
the terms of the bill, be equal to twenty- 
five thousand men. Give me a President 
disposed to use that military force, in or- 
der to coerce the people of these States to 
his purposes, and with the command of 
the Federal Treasury, and with the means 



of concentration which our multiplied sys^ 
tern of railroads and steamboats furnishesf 
and he can come like the lightning o 
heaven at any moment, with this concen- 
trated and tremendous power, upon any 
State, or upon any portion of the people 
that he chooses. 

I do not desire to go to the Departments ; 
I do not wish to go to the Secretary of 
War, or to the President, or to anybody 
else, to tell me what he wants M'ilh this 
army. Here I will do all credit to the dis- 
tiniTuished gentleman who has charfje of 
the bill, the chairman of the Committee 
on Military Affairs, [Mr. Davis.] He tells 
us it is not for Utah ; it i.s for no pressing 
emergency ; it is for nothing of to-day ; it 
is not to be used to meet the dangers 
which now environ us, and then to be laid 
aside ; but he wants it for a permanent in- 
crease of the standing army of this coun- 
try. The use to which this standing army 
is to be put is exemplified by the use which 
is now made of it in the Territory of Kan- 
sas. Two thousand five hundred troops 
are kept there ; and the honorable Sena- 
tor from New York says he would not vote 
for an increase, if he thought they would 
be sent there. Sir, if I may be indulged 
in quoting a remark of a very illustrious 
and very distinguished patriot and orator 
of the Revolution, I would say that I have 
no light to guide my path except that of 
experience ; and the experience of the 
past year, the experience of the present 
moment, tells me to what uses the army is 
to be put. 

Here let me say, that while that most 
dangerous, that most fallacious, that most 
monstrous doctrine, which has lately been 
broached and practiced upon upon by the 
Executive of this country, that, under the 
general power to see the laws faithfully 
executed, he has a right to call out at his 
will the army and the navy, under the name 
of a posse ; while that doctrine is pro- 
claimed and acted upon, it is not a time 
for me, however it may be for others, to 
strengthen the hands of a man who is dis- 
posed to use the power conferred for such 
purposes and on such authority. 1 deny 
here, utterly and totally and forever, that 
he has any such right ; and I say that it is 
a usurpation, a dangerous, an alarming, a 
fatal one — one that, if it be tolerated by 
this Government, will bury our liberties 
beyond the reach of resurrection. No, 



sir; we cannot stand it. There is not a 
crowned head in Europe that would desire 
a greater pow(;r over the standing army ot 
his realm than to make him the guardian 
to see that the laws are faithfully executed, 
and under that grant to have power to call 
in the army to do it. Sir, is it a time for 
me, is it a time for my friends, is it a time 
for the distinguished Senator from New 
York, upon whom the eyes and the hearts 
of the friends of Liberty have centered and 
clustered, when such dangerous and fatal 
and damnable doctrines are proclaimed 
and practiced upon by the Executive of 
the United States, to vote seven thousand 
extra men to him? No, sir; it is not for 
me, however it may be for others. 

The honorable Senator refers to the ex- 
perience of two years ago, when the Gov- 
ernment was brought to a dead lock, and 
when, he says we were not so strong as 
we are now. We were not then so strong 
on this floor as we are now ; but we are 
not so strong now but that our strength 
is weakness; for we are but a third of 
this body, with a majority of two thirds 
against us; and we were stronger then in 
the House of Representatives than we are 
to-day, by a very considerable number. 
What was the result of that dead lock? 
Why, the President said it was his duty to 
see that the laws were faithfully executed, 
and he issued his proclamation immedi- 
ately, called Congress together, and kept 
them until they became subservient to his 
purposes. That is the history of that dead 
lock, and I do not doubt the President 
would like such another, with the same 
result. 

In the history of my political life, I have 
seen a time when I stood solitary and 
alone, the representative of the views 
which I entertain. I have looked with 
joy, with gladness, with gratitude, to the 
increasing hosts that have rallied around 
our banner in the free States, until the 
Democratic party has been stricken down 
in the large majority of them. I have 
seen these accretions made to our ranks 
with gratitude, but I have seen, also, other 
men coming to our ranks, who might 
have relieved me from a position which I 
occupied with reluctance, and that was 
to be the representative of this party when 
it was nothing but a sentiment, and when 
political power was not even among its 
dreams. But, sir, when a new star is 



dawning; when light is beaming in upon 
us; when one party has been shattered so 
that its history may be written among the 
things of the past, and when from its ruins 
and Its wrecks we were building up a new 
fortress to storm the battlements of the 
heretofore impregnable Democracy — at 
such a time as this, it does fill my heart 
with pain, and my mind with fearful ap- 
prehensions, when I see any one upon 
whom I have looked with the hope that 
he might lead great hosts to the consum- 
mation of their hopes and their wishes, 
halting upon a question which, in my hum- 
ble apprehension, is fundamental, vital, and 
characterizes the whole controversy. 

We must come to an issue on this sub- 
ject. The history of the Republics that 
have lived and gone down is full of warn- 
ing on this subject. We are apt to boast 
of what we are, and of what we have 
done, and to look back on our history 
with exultation and pride. Why, sir, we 
are not yet one hundred years old. The 
Republic of Rome lived more than six 
hundred years, strong, conquering the 
world, and adding new kingdoms to her 
territory; but she at last fell, and her lib- 
erties perished under the insidious policy 
which converted her into a great military 
power; until, at last, the imperial crown 
was set up at auction, and knocked off to 
the highest bidder from the walls of the 
Prajtorian camp. 

I confess that upon this subject I have 
very deep I'eelings ; for, if the party with 
which are my hopes and my expectations 
do not take ground against the increase 
of the military power of this Go\ernment, 
it will go down, and ought to ; and my 
humble voice, and my humble services, 
shall be found rallying the people to set 
the seal of their condemnation upon a 
party with great professions and high prin- 
ciples, but, in my humble judgment, want- 
ing in the carrying out of those measures 
which their policy and their principles 
should dictate. 

If I had supposed that I should speak 
on this subject to-day, I should have re- 
ferred to an authority, and I should have 
had the author by me. I was reading, 
not long ago, an ancient history, in which, 
speaking of the final destruction of the 
Roman empire, the author said, that when- 
ever the people began to get turbulent, 
whenever there began to be danger of the 



agrarian law being carried, or any other 
measure of popular liberty vindicated, it 
was a favorite policy of the aristocracy lo 
get up a foreign war ; " for," said the his- 
torian, " in war the State is strong, and 
factions weak." I believe that it is just 
exactly that policy which dictated a for- 
eign war whenever public liberty was in 
danger of being vindicated in ancient 
Rome, that dictates this Utah war now. 

Let me ask, if I must go to that, where 
is the evidence that the atfairs in Utah are 
more threatening now than they were 
when Brigham Young was Governor by 
consent of President Pierce ? Are their 
sentiments any more leprous, or their 
practices any more abominable, now, than 
they were then? Not that I know of. I 
have seen no evidence that their depravity 
or their principles have made progress 
since that time, and I am utterly at a loss, if 
this is an army lo go to Utah, to know of 
any reason or any Jact which would justify 
sending an army to Utah, when there is 
not, so far as I am advised, any ditference 
in the state of affairs now, from what there 
was when they were basking in the sun- 
shine of Executive favor. 

The slate of affairs there, so far as I am 
advised, is not different now from what it 
was then. 

The honorable Senator from New 
York — I know he will not misinterpret 
what I am saying — says that if he errs, it 
will be a sale error. I should like to 
make a very small addition there, and let 
it read " unsafe," and I shall theu agree 
with Ijjim entirely. It is an unsafe error. 
It is an error that I fear cannot be re- 
trieved. For several years past we have 
been marching in the path of increasing 
our army ; and it is avowed here on this 
floor, that this bill provides for a perma- 
nent increase. I see no backward steps. 
I am like the cautious animal which, when 
he was reproached for not going into the 
sick lion's den to pay his respects to the 
monarch, said he would have gone in, 
but, as he looked around to see the tracks, 
he found that they were all going in, and 
none coming out. So it is with the in- 
creases of the army; all the measures are 
for increasing and none for decreasing it; 
they are all one way; and I feel called 
upon to take my stand here, and say I 
will not vole another man or another dol- 
lar to increase the expenses of the army, 



The honorable Senator suggests another 
thing which, it seems to me, has an in- 
firmiiy about it which does not often at- 
tach to suggestions or arguments that 
come from his lips. He says we will 
give them this army, and then we shall 
have the power over them, because we 
will not pay them if we are not satisfied 
with the uses to which they are put; or 
we can refuse the ])ay. So we can ; but 
we can refuse the men much easier. The 
argument is a great deal stronger for re- 
fusing the men, than it will be for refusing 
the pay after you have granted the men. 
If we are going to exercise that whole- 
some control over the Executive, which 
in theory belongs to this body and the 
body at the other end of the Capitol, here 
is the place and now is the time to stop. 

If things were twice as threatening as 
the honorable Senator thinks they are in 
Utah, let me ask you if we have not an 
army more than four times sufficient for 
all the emergencies ? I have heard it said 
by those who pretend to know, and who, 
I think, do know, that five thousand men 
will be as many as you can possibly use 
in Utah, even if there shall be a necessity 
for them, which is not conceded. We 
have an army now capable of being filled 
up to eighteen thousand men, and I am 
told, practically, it is fifteen thousand at 
this moment. I do not know the neces- 
sity of increasing the force beyond that, 
when they will not want one third of that 
force to put down the troubles in Utah. 

Nor am I disposed to make very great 
drafts on my confidence in behalf of the 
manner in which this affair has been man- 
aged thus far, from the accounts which I 
have read, and which purport to be official 
accounts of the manner in which the force 
that is now on its way to Utah has been 
precipitated there. Utterly regardless, if 
you are to believe the accounts which have 
come to us, of any single suggestion, not 
only of military foresight, but of common 
prudence, you have sent your men there 
to sufler their beasts to die, and expose 
them to the inclemencies of the winter, 
where they are locked up in the moun- 
tains. I think half the animals sent out 
with them died from mere starvation and 
the effects of cold. If this was a bill to 
furnish the Executive with prudence and 
discretion, I would vote liberal appropria- 
tions; but it being a bill to increase the 



8 



military force at a time when 1 think the 
friends of Liberty should be jealous of in- 
creasing it; and it being at a time when, 
if the accounts that we read be true, there 
has not been such conduct displayed as 
should entitle them to our confidence, I 
shall vote against it. 

For these and many other reasons, I am 
utterly opposed to the bill. Opposed as I 
am to it, I should not have said a word if 
there was not danger, from the position 
which the distinguished Senator from New 
York occupies, and justly occupies, in the 
public estimation, that the words which 
fell from his oracular lips might be sup- 



posed to compromit or compromise feebler 
and humbler men who sit at his feet. But 
for that, I should not have ventured thus 
openly, before the Senate and the country, 
to dissent from what he has said ; but look- 
ing upon it as I do, as a very dangerous 
error, and one which I am ill prepared to 
have go out under the sanction of his name 
unchallenged, I have deemed it my duty, 
in all the kindness that I entertain for him, 
and all the profound respect that I feel for 
him, thus publicly to differ from him on a 
question which I consider vital and funda- 
mental to the dearest and best interests of 
the country. 



1 

Lit a 

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WASHINGTON, D. C. 
BUELL. & BLANCHARD, PRINTERS. 

1858. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



012 605 246 7 



